Maybe it's possible to go in this room through that door? I don't know. The thought just crossed my mind that there is sometimes a description of the Buddhist path, from the beginner to the person who has gone beyond training, the fully trained

[01:29]

practitioner, and it's broken up into five paths. The first path is called the path of equipment. The second path is the path of concerted effort. The third path is called the path of vision. The fourth path is sometimes called the path of meditation, but it literally is the path of becoming what you have seen in the third path. And the fourth path is the path beyond training. No more training, you're just enjoying what you've learned. And I was just thinking that we're studying now this central teaching, I would say, of the Buddhas, the teaching of causation, and I was thinking we're kind of getting equipped here, and when we have enough equipment, you'll be able to, I think, make a concerted effort, but it's maybe hard for most of you to figure out how to make an effort because you haven't

[02:35]

really got the equipment yet. So equipment. So I've just said that the Buddha's teaching is basically the teaching of causation, the teaching of dependent co-arising, and selflessness. And that the purpose of this teaching is so that we'll be selfless and be able to live for the welfare of others and help others. If we can receive this teaching of dependent co-arising and understand selflessness, we will be able to help others. Anybody not heard of the Eightfold Path?

[03:49]

Raise your hands. So the Buddha's, one of the Buddha's basic teachings is the teaching of the, anybody not heard of the Four Noble Truths? So the Four Noble Truths are, the first truth is the truth of suffering, the second truth is the truth of the origin or origination of suffering. The third truth is the truth of the, sometimes translated as a cessation of suffering, but you could also say being at peace with suffering. And the fourth truth is the truth of the path, which oftentimes we say the path which leads to peace. But I think it's also sometimes to say the path which is peace. So I wouldn't necessarily say that suffering is eliminated, but the translation of the

[04:58]

cessation of suffering, I'm not opposed to that, but I think it might be in some ways useful to speak of being at peace with suffering, because nirvana means peace, nirvana is peace. Nirvana doesn't get rid of all the suffering, it just is a way of being at peace with suffering. If there is any suffering, and as you know there is lots of suffering, so how can we be at peace with it? Well peace with suffering is the eightfold path. And the truth of suffering, in some sense the truth of suffering is the second truth, namely that there's an origin of suffering. So the first two, the first two truths are the truth of suffering, which is not that easy to understand what the truth is, and oftentimes people express the truth of suffering as that the Buddha taught there is suffering, or that life is suffering.

[05:59]

He didn't, I don't think he said life is suffering, he did define suffering. Suffering is, one of the definitions of suffering is basically suffering is whatever you're experiencing, if you have any attachment. So colors are suffering, smells are suffering, tastes are suffering, tangibles are suffering, ideas are suffering, perceptions are suffering, feelings are suffering, ideas are suffering, consciousness is suffering, everything is suffering, if you're clinging. That's kind of the truth of suffering. Not that there is suffering, because part of what causes suffering is clinging to some category of existence, like there is a person, or there isn't a person. So the next part is that suffering arises, it has an origination, it's something that

[07:07]

arises and ceases, arises and ceases. So the first two truths are a truth about causation. The first one is suffering is due to this, that's his definition, or its origination, it originates in grasping, clinging, and craving. And the next one also is, there's peace, and peace arises through practice. And the practice that's usually mentioned first is the Eightfold Path, Eightfold Practice. And the first practice, or the first aspect of practice, is called Right View. And Right View is expressed in words, I would say essentially, Right View is expressed by

[08:10]

the words, action has consequence, karma has consequence, karma has effects, that's the basic element of Right View. So there's a practice there, what's the practice? The practice is, pay attention to the teaching that action has consequence. The practice, which is peace, is the practice of being mindful of actions have consequence. So, in a sense, if you don't understand that yet, there is this instruction for you, that

[09:12]

you can pay attention to and remember, that every action has consequence. When you remember that, you're remembering Right View. You're doing the first basic practice, which is peace. You're remembering to pay attention to cause and effect. I would say, in that sense, if you would hear this teaching and then remember it and pay attention to it, that in some sense I would say you have faith in the Buddha's teaching and you're practicing faith in causation. Faith in the teaching that causation, that the view and attention to causation is basic

[10:13]

to the practice. So here's a belief, it can be stated as like a law, but you can also say it's a belief. The belief is that life cannot be understood correctly, and correctly means, in a sense, in such a way as to find peace in this life. Life cannot be understood in a way which is peace in the midst of suffering without understanding

[11:19]

dependent co-arising. If you want there to be peace in the world, not just for you, but for all beings, it is necessary that dependent co-arising be understood. However, we could call the class off now, now that you've got this, but there's another part of it that that right view is actually a little bit more than just hearing those words and remembering them. Because right now, any of you who have heard this and are remembering what I said, you have some understanding of that. Most of you probably have a conventional understanding of what I just said.

[12:23]

I do. You probably do too. But the understanding that's necessary to realize peace is an understanding which goes beyond the one you have right now, unless you have two. Could you say that again? Who asked? I did. The correct understanding, the kind of understanding that is the realization of peace, the actual right view, is more than just hearing these teachings like you have just heard and you all have some kind of like common sense understanding of what I just said. But the understanding that's necessary to actually realize peace is an understanding which goes beyond the conventional understanding that you have right now. And if some of you feel like you don't have a conventional understanding, it also goes beyond that conventional understanding. And the basic way it goes beyond it is that the correct understanding includes that each

[13:36]

of us, when we hear this language and this encouragement to pay attention to causation, each of us has a mind which makes some mental construction about causation or about that causation is being taught. I would say in conventional truth, causation is, there's an attempt to teach causation right now. And all of you have some understanding of causation right now. And that conventional understanding you have is a mental construction that your mind is creating. And that mental construction of causation which your mind is creating is being projected upon causation. So we, in order to have the full understanding of causation, of dependent co-arising, we

[14:45]

need to also be aware that our mind is projecting an image or ideas or projecting some stuff onto the causation. And in particular, our mind will tend to project some kind of self-nature onto causation and self-nature onto the elements of causation. So we don't have to stop doing that, but we do need to be aware that we're doing that in order to understand causation which is not some projection we have, which is not the causation which we're projecting. And this is a big deal to learn how to do this. It's really hard. It's even hard just to remember your conventional idea of causation all the time. That's hard. But then also to be self-reflective and watch that you're actually projecting some idea

[15:53]

on this teaching, that's even more difficult. But that's what the class is for, is to help you learn how to do that and help you teach others how to do that. I brought some calligraphy for you tonight. This is Chinese and it says, Deep Faith and Cause and Effect. Reading from the top. Deep Faith, Cause and Effect. The second character which means faith is a person standing next to words. This is a person, word. Part of what faith is about is that you actually are paying attention to it. You, the person, is getting intimate with the word causation. Because this is deep faith in cause and effect.

[16:58]

This is in some sense, this could be applied then to right view. That some people, if you have faith in the Buddha's teaching that the Eightfold Path is the path of peace or to peace, the first part of the path is about causation. So if you trust that teaching of the Eightfold Path, then you would trust, hopefully deeply, the teaching of right view, which is action has consequence. The next four elements in the Eightfold Path are also basically about action. After right view comes right intention. Intention is the definition of karma.

[18:04]

So the second element in the Eightfold Path is also requiring us to pay attention to our intention. And intention is the definition of karma, but also intention is mental karma, mental action. Intention is the definition of all kinds of karma, but intention all by itself is mental karma. Then comes vocal karma and physical karma. And right livelihood. So vocal karma is speech which is coming from an intention or with an intention. And physical karma is physical postures, gestures, which are also expressing intention.

[19:12]

So we sometimes say that mental karma is the source karma, vocal karma is kind of like the self identity or the self character of karma, and physical karma, bodily karma, is the substance of karma. And we also say right view, right intention. So we're trying to develop right intention and we can talk about what right intention is, but the key element that I want to emphasize now is that right intention means that you're paying attention to action. Right intention would require paying attention to your intentions. Does that make sense? Every moment our mind has intentions.

[20:20]

In other words, every moment we have mental karma, mental action. That's what I proposed to you, I think that's what the Buddhas teach also. Every moment of conscious life, basically, there's an intention, there's action, and all those actions have consequence. For the intention to be right intention requires mindfulness and awareness and attention to the intention. If the intention is not closely cared for, it becomes bad intention. Right view is saying intention is really important to pay attention to,

[21:29]

because it has consequence. And the consequence it has is the world of suffering. All suffering has consequences. This basically comes from our karma, from our intentions. We want to have right intention. So it requires attention to have right intention. This is the source of karma. And then comes speech, [...] words, talk, talk, talk. Every time we speak where there's intention, that has consequence. And I remember hearing, and this is a thought that is difficult for me,

[22:38]

I keep slipping from my mind over the years, that speech gets a special kind of honor, that speech is kind of like quintessential karma. And I think, what's quintessential about it? Well, one thing quintessential about speech is that it's very difficult to pay attention to your intention while you're speaking. It's also difficult to pay attention to your intention while you're thinking. Again, thinking is another word for intention. It's hard to think and pay attention to your thinking while you're thinking. It's hard to have intentions and be aware of your intention right as the intention is happening. But in a way, it's even more difficult to be aware of your intention while you're speaking, while you're speaking. At the beginning of speaking, it's a little easier, I feel,

[23:41]

to be aware of your intention than after you get into it a little bit. Also, at the end of the speaking, when it's done, it's kind of easier to be aware of the speaking. Oops, what did I say? But while you're saying it, to say, this is really stupid, even though I'm not saying it's stupid, I'm saying, I'm right, I'm right, you're wrong, it's hard to simultaneously say, oh, I'm saying that I'm right, and I'm intending to win this argument and show this person's wrong. It's hard. In that sense, speech is like the quintessential example of the other kinds of karma. Physical karma also, it's difficult to be aware of your intention while you move your arms and stuff. But in some sense, it's easier than speaking. So, all three kinds of karma,

[24:42]

mental, vocal, and physical, involve a cognitive element. If they don't, they're not karma. One's purely mental, the other two are physical, but they have this cognitive element of intention in them, that's what makes them karma in the sense of the kind of karma, the kind of action that is moral or creates worlds. Now, again, faith in cause and effect would be that upon which you would start paying attention to your intentions, mental, vocal, and physical, that you would... deep faith would be that you would actually practice that. And understand that this is not easy. It's not easy to be aware of your intentions while they're arising,

[25:47]

but that's actually what's being encouraged here. And telling you, it's hard, so be patient with yourself and others when they're not able to do that. What was that again? To be aware of intention. What's the reason for being aware of intention? Because intentions have consequence. What's the deal about that? By paying attention to these things that have consequence, there's a possibility that you will arrive at peace, that you will fully understand life, that it's being said that we must understand this in order to understand life. When we understand life, we will be at peace. Before we understand it, we will not yet really be at peace. And actually, before everybody understands it, we will not yet be at peace. So we've got to get everybody to practice this. I also made some copies of the calligraphy,

[26:59]

and you can have a copy of this calligraphy, and you can take it home with you, and you can use it to remember the class, and remember the Buddha's teaching. This is basically Buddha's teaching. Now I'd like to say something about beliefs. Before I give you more stuff to believe in, I'd like to say some things about beliefs. Yeah, so at the beginning, at the beginning of the teaching, there's this teaching that action has consequence.

[28:06]

And I just want to mention that I've heard over the years, especially, I used to hear it more, but I've heard various people tell me that Zen does not have any beliefs. Anybody else heard that? Huh? How many people have heard that? It used to be more commonly said, Zen has no beliefs. And it's not so commonly said that Buddhadharma has no beliefs. But I'm not saying that Zen does have beliefs, or that Buddhadharma has beliefs. But I guess I do kind of think that whether Zen has beliefs,

[29:11]

or whether Buddhadharma has beliefs, I think that people have beliefs. And when I first started practicing Zen, I was not so strongly impressed, as I am now, by the belief. First of all, I guess the idea, and then the belief. I now have a belief. A while ago I had an idea, that idea has become a belief. I believe now that human beings need beliefs. So it isn't exactly that Buddhadharma has beliefs, or Zen has beliefs, but the people who practice Zen, they have beliefs. So the Zen practitioners, it isn't that Zen is telling you to have beliefs, it's that you have beliefs, and Zen is saying, it would be a good idea if you became aware of your beliefs, since you have them.

[30:13]

Just like Zen doesn't have feet, or eyeballs, but I believe that Zen thinks you should be aware that you have feet, if you have them. So I agree with the belief that people need beliefs, and I also believe... Wait, you said have, not need. Oh, I believe that people need them, and I believe that people have them. Aren't they the source of suffering? Beliefs? Don't they apply to the second Noble Truth? Isn't a belief the same as being attached to... I would say, no. He said, aren't beliefs the same as suffering? I would say, no, they're not. Okay? So I wrote down here,

[31:15]

Zen does not equal no beliefs. I wrote Zen equals the emptiness of beliefs. Zen equals the selflessness of beliefs. If you have beliefs, for example, the belief in causation, if you believed there was causation, if you believed it was good to pay attention to causation, if you had that belief, then you'd have a belief. Zen didn't tell you to have that belief. The Buddha did say those things, but the Buddha didn't tell you to believe it. But you do believe it or you don't, and if you don't believe it, you have a belief of not believing it. The Buddha is saying, you probably should become aware of your beliefs and then realize the emptiness of your beliefs.

[32:17]

So when you hear about causation, you do have beliefs about causation, you have ideas about causation, and you believe them, and if you don't realize the emptiness of them, if you think they're substantial, that's the cause of suffering. Because if you don't realize the selflessness of your beliefs, the insubstantiality, the ungraspability, the emptiness of your beliefs, then you grasp them, and when you grasp them, that's suffering. So would you equate belief to what you were calling equipment before? What I call? No. That it's a tool in a sense? I would call equipment the ways, the ways and the tools or the ways that you remember the teachings. Enough so that you can exercise them. So now, for example, you just got a little bit more equipment there. You got, this is equipment.

[33:19]

People need beliefs, and they have them. And in order to have, and the best way to take care of beliefs is to take care of them so well that you realize that they're empty. Okay, so I'm just going to rhapsodize on this a little bit. So Zen is understanding the emptiness of beliefs, which you have, including your beliefs in cause and effect. Emptiness equals freedom from beliefs. It's not like there's no beliefs and you're free of no beliefs. You're free of beliefs that you've got or that are in your life. Zen is a non-dwelling in your beliefs, and it's also non-dwelling in anything. But now we're talking about beliefs,

[34:22]

so got a belief, non-dwelling in it. So, for example, if you have a belief in the teaching of causation, then we would like to learn how to not dwell in your belief in the teaching of causation. There's a big punchline coming up. Zen is non-attachment to your beliefs. Zen is understanding that beliefs are totally dependent and totally contingent, totally a relative, totally conventional. Beliefs are conventional. You can't have a, well, you can have a non-conventional belief, but a non-conventional belief is still conventional. The emptiness of beliefs is not conventional.

[35:25]

That's the ultimate truth of the beliefs, is their selflessness, is their non-self. Beliefs do not have a self, just like people don't have a self. Nothing has a self in the sense of being independent. The only kind of selves we have are dependent self, contingent selves. The only kind of beliefs we have are contingent, dependent beliefs. Including our belief in dependent co-arising. And dependent co-arising is a teaching which we can believe in, which is especially set up to help us not dwell in that belief. Okay? The teaching of causation is something that's especially set up so that when we believe in the teaching, we'll be entering the process by which we won't dwell in our belief. And that will help us not dwell in our belief in anything. And that will help us not dwell in anything. And that's the end of suffering.

[36:28]

Or that's peace with suffering. And this is not the punchline yet. The punchline is, in order to realize, for example, non-attachment to anything or non-attachment to the teaching of causation, we have to take really good care of the teaching of causation. We have to study it deeply, and deeply means deeply and constantly. We have to get consistent and deeper into the teaching, caring for these teachings with our whole heart. And in that care of our conventional views of the teaching, we realize the way the teachings are such that we don't grasp them, we don't dwell on them, we don't attach to them. And this is peace. And one thing I think I can also add

[37:36]

that you might be able to follow at this point, and I'll say it over and over, is that in caring for your beliefs, you're caring for your conventional understanding, because beliefs are conventional things. You're caring for your projections on whatever. So if you have a Buddhist teaching on causation, what you're caring for is your mental construction of it. And you can attach to your mental construction of these wonderful teachings. These excellent central teachings of the Buddha we project something onto, and you can attach to that. So that's what we've got. Now be really kind to that and study that, and you will not be able to attach to it anymore. And this whole teaching is set up to help us be devoted to something which will eventually be a non-dwelling place for us to live.

[38:41]

So I'm both trying to encourage you to listen to these teachings, take care of these teachings, and I'm trying to encourage myself to listen to these teachings, to remember these teachings, to remember these teachings, to remember these teachings. And I'm very fortunate in teaching this class because this class helps me remember this teaching throughout the week, because I know I'm going to come back here next week and talk to you about these. So I think about these teachings a lot, which is really nice for me. And it would be nice if you did the same. You don't have to, because you're not the teacher. But if you did it, it would be good if you did it, and actually I would like you to, even though I'm not going to make you come up here and play the role I'm playing yet. But I would like someday for you all to be able to teach this. So we could have 40 classes on causation in California. Happening on Thursday nights, all over the state,

[39:45]

that you're teaching. And you'll teach them better if you're thinking about it all week. Just like if I think about it all week, basically I teach it better. Because I'm showing you, actually I enjoy thinking about this all week. I do. I'm into it. And I remember what I told you. I remember that I'm dealing with my mental projection of it all week. And I know that's not it. All week. And I'm kind to myself and my mental projections. And that means I less and less dwell on them. So not only do I remember them, but I kind of don't dwell on them. And I feel even better when I don't. I really feel good when I don't dwell on them. But I don't feel good not dwelling on things that I'm not taking care of. That doesn't feel good. You've got to really be devoted to it

[40:49]

and then don't dwell on it. That's what's wonderful. And being devoted to it is hard. Because it's got other things to do, right? Other than pay attention to what you're thinking. Like, just think without paying attention, in other words. That's what most people are doing. They're doing karma all day, but they're not paying attention because they are not convinced that it's really important that they do. And then if they do pay attention, then on top of paying attention, now you have to pay attention in a very kind way. A very loving way. A gentle way. A patient way. Even if you're thinking a nasty thought, you have to be kind to the thought and yourself. And with this remembering and then being kind with what you remember, then you get ready to not dwell on it. And then we're talking about what the point of the teaching is. So, I have this idea I'm sharing with you.

[41:53]

I believe in this, actually, and I'm telling you I do. But I could believe in it more. I could believe it more. That would be okay for me to believe it even more than I do. I can see there's room for deepening the belief. And with that deepening belief is a deepening non-dwelling. And that's what I think it's about. It's about not dwelling. But we have to really love things before we can not dwell on them. Not dwelling is not the same as ignorance and denial. Not dwelling requires great love and compassion. And I'm giving you a candidate for great love and compassion, which is everything you experience,

[42:54]

and that's because everything you experience is dependent co-arising. There's nothing you experience that's not dependent co-arising. Just remember that everything you experience is a dependent co-arising. Every person you meet is a dependent co-arising. Just remember that. And then also remember that when you remember it, you're remembering your mental projection of it being a dependent co-arising. And then be really kind to this dependent co-arising. When you see a person, they're a dependent co-arising. When you see a dog, they're a dependent co-arising. When you see a teaching about dependent co-arising, it's a dependent co-arising. When you see a pain, a pleasure, a fear, an anger, those are all dependent co-arisings. They're all opportunities to pay attention to this Dharma of dependent co-arising. And then when you're paying attention now, be really kind to what you're paying attention to.

[43:58]

Now that it's got your attention, or you could say now that the teaching's got your attention, because when you remember this, the teaching's got your attention. You're looking at a person and you're remembering the teaching. Okay, now learn to really completely be there with this. And then you'll notice, perhaps you'll notice, and if you don't, we can help you. If you're paying attention and you're being kind and you think you're not attached, you're probably overlooking that you are. But if you're paying attention and you're being devoted to a dependent co-arising, in other words, to whatever's happening, because all phenomena are dependent co-arising, if you're paying attention to that teaching and taking care of this meeting, you probably, without any assistance, will notice that you're dwelling. Because you probably are.

[44:58]

Because you're projecting something on it, which is sort of saying, hey, grab ahold of me and dwell in me. So you probably will notice this. And again, if you can't, it's easy to help you with it, because there's lots of ways to find out that somebody's dwelling. But you can probably catch yourself quite a bit. Because at this point, you're on the job, see? You're paying attention, you're being really devoted, and you notice, yeah, I kind of have some expectations here. I'm expecting something here. And I can tell because I'm feeling frustrated. Et cetera. I believe that beliefs are necessary and dangerous. So I want us to learn how to live uprightly with our beliefs.

[46:12]

Then we can not fall into the dangers, and we can realize the Dharma. And then I have, in addition to this, I have some kind of like laws. I have several laws. And again, I mentioned last week that I like the idea that these laws I'm presenting you are like, they're not fixed things, they're like paths for you to inquire, upon which you can inquire. So here's a law. It's kind of a basic law about dependent co-arising. About causation. Wholesome actions are beneficial. Or wholesome actions have beneficial consequence.

[47:34]

An example of that would be yoga postures. Yoga postures and breathing. You could say those are examples of wholesome karma. No, only if they're done skillfully or wholesomely. So a yoga posture that's done skillfully is one that has beneficial results. Some people do yoga postures and get hurt. So we call that unwholesome yoga posture or unskillful yoga posture. But let's say you do a skillful yoga posture and you feel like it has beneficial results. But even if you don't feel like it has beneficial results, it's defined as an action that does have beneficial results. That's what we mean by wholesome action.

[48:37]

Is that a function of your intention makes it wholesome? Yes. See, a physical posture is made by an intention. If you wound up in a physical posture without there being an intention in it, it wouldn't be skillful. If I just threw you across the room and you wound up in a certain posture when you hit the ground, that wouldn't be because of your intention, probably, unless you were really skillful and while you were flying through the air you decided to land a certain way. But just being in a posture is not a wholesome action, a physical action. So intention is what makes it wholesome, what makes it skillful, and what brings benefit. But if you have an intention to do a great yoga posture

[49:49]

and you hurt yourself, then you didn't have a skillful intention? If you had the intention to do a great yoga posture and you hurt yourself, and someone could understand that you getting hurt was the result of a yoga posture, then that yoga posture that it was the result of would be unskillful, would be unwholesome. So, I didn't particularly want to bring this up now, but... This part I did feel okay about. Believing the teaching that wholesome actions are beneficial, or believing the teaching that what we mean by wholesome actions are those that are beneficial, that's also like belief in right view. Because implied in that belief is that actions have consequence.

[50:51]

And we're defining wholesome actions as those that have beneficial, helpful consequence. But the shadow of this little conversation right now is that you cannot... First of all, that the action, because its wholesomeness depends on whether it's beneficial or not, the action does not have in itself an essence of wholesomeness, because it depends on its consequence. And you cannot tell by watching an action and seeing something else happen after it that the thing that happened after it was caused by that action. But we project, we mentally project that onto actions. So I said this last week, you can see this body,

[51:53]

and you can see the next body, you can see this posture and you can see the next posture, you can see how this posture feels and how the next posture feels, and if this posture feels this way and you're trying to be skillful and the next posture feels bad, you could say, well, the first posture caused the second posture, and the intention of the first posture caused the feeling of the second posture. But you cannot see causation. All you can see is your mental projection that that was the causation. And your example was, you intend to do a good yoga posture, but if the result of that yoga posture is harm, then your intention was not skillful. However, when do you find out that it was harmful? The next moment?

[53:01]

Two minutes later? A week later? You never can actually get a hold of whether it was wholesome or unwholesome. You can't get a hold of it. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't wholesome or unwholesome. And again, one of the main things that's beneficial about wholesome action is that it leads to interest in paying attention to your action. So, unwholesome actions, generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking, do not have much attention given to them. And then they have the consequence of making you not very interested in paying attention. Wholesome actions do have attention paid towards them, and they tend to have the result of making you more interested in paying attention again. But again, paying attention doesn't mean

[54:05]

paying attention and being able to see causation. It's paying attention, and by paying attention, here's the law, here's one of the laws, by paying attention, your intentions, your karma, your action, evolves positively. But you cannot see with the way you're performing these actions, in that realm of the way you're seeing yourself performing these actions, and the way you're intending to do them, and the way you're paying attention, all that, that realm of vision, you cannot see causation. Question inaudible It seems very strange that you've made a definition that wholesome actions are those that have beneficial consequences. Wholesome actions are defined as those that have beneficial consequences, but you can't actually use this definition. Why can't you use it? Because the wholesome action isn't that ever real, you know.

[55:08]

You can't actually see the causation. No, you can't see it, but you can use it in that way you just said. In the way you just said, you call that not being able to use it. The way you usually would use it would be that you would be able... The way people usually think about using something is that you would do something that you thought was skillful, or that you wanted to be skillful, and then you could see that it was or wasn't. That would be the usual way of using something, but you can't use it that way. That's right. But you can use it another way. That seems fine, actually. But when you use the word definition, like the ordinary usage of definitions, if you define something, then you can use that definition in some operational way. In this particular case, you're making a definition and saying, the point of the definition, you can't use it any other way. No, you can use... The operational way of using it is that you can use it to find out

[56:09]

that you won't be able to verify the wholesomeness by the process by which you usually get a hold of things. It won't be that way. That's the way you can use it. That's why it's faith. That's why it's a belief, partly. And... So, again, now we have right view. Oops, it's nine o'clock. So one kind of right view is the right view that you believe in cause and effect. But there's another kind of right view is when you understand the emptiness of cause and effect. And that's the, you might say,

[57:13]

the full right view is when you understand the emptiness of cause and effect, or the ungraspability of cause and effect. And when you understand that, then you continue to do... to act with the intention of being skillful. You continue to do that, and it encourages you to continue to do that. But without dwelling in it. Without dwelling in that this action, which I intend to be wholesome, is actually really wholesome. Independent of its results. No, that's not true. By definition, it's not independent. It's really... Actually, I'm certain that it's really beneficial. But how could I be? How could I be? Because I haven't seen all the results.

[58:15]

And action has different... It has immediate result, it has short, long-term result, delayed result, and long-term result. I can't see it. So I'm totally devoted to this, paying attention to action, and I'm not dwelling in the devotion, in the action, or in its wholesomeness. And I'm also devoted to do good action, to have good intentions. And I'm not dwelling in that intention. And I think this would be beneficial also, maybe. But I'm not dwelling in the thought that I think this would be beneficial. So this is getting quite advanced, quite early in this class. And thank you very much for letting this happen. So if you'd like to have one of these pieces of calligraphy

[59:21]

to encourage your practice, they're for you and your friends. I'm trying to learn 9 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 9 o'clock. Is this your signature down there? It's beautiful. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, over there. Why don't you go over there? May I take one for my niece, too? May I take one for my niece also? And Charlie, I brought your questions, but I didn't get to them. But I have them right here.

[60:08]

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